Research

Data Projects

Click on the links below to access Chenoweth’s active data collection projects and descriptions of those underway.

Women in Resistance (WiRe) Data Project – with Zoe Marks

  • See the associated report here.
  • See research brief here.

Crowd Counting Consortium (CCC) – with Jeremy Pressman

  • See reports & analysis here.

Nonviolent and Violent Campaigns and Outcomes (NAVCO) Data Project – with Orion A. Lewis, Jonathan Pinckney, and Christopher W. Shay

  • Version 1.2 (campaigns from 1945-2014) – now available!
  • Version 2.1 (campaign-years from 1945-2013) – now available!
  • Version 1.3 (campaigns from 1900-2019) – now available!
  • Version 2.2 (campaign-year from 1945-2019) – release date TBD.

Nonviolent Action in Violent Contexts (NVAVC) Data Project – with Cullen Hendrix and Kyleanne Hunter

Government Actions in Terror Environments (GATE) Data Project – with Laura Dugan

Militant Group Alliances and Rivalries (MGAR) Data Project – with Christopher Blair, Michael Horowitz, Evan Perkoski, and Philip Potter

External Support for Nonviolent Movements Data (EX-D) Project (in progress) – with Paul Kemp, JJ Janflone, Maria Lotito, and Maria J. Stephan

Major Episodes of Contention (MEC) Data Project (in progress) – with Sooyeon Kang

Publications

Click on the links below for direct access to Chenoweth’s publications and data archives. For more details, please click on their CV or Google Scholar page. To look at some of Chenoweth’s recent working papers, visit their page on the Social Science Research Network.

Terrorism and Non-State Political Violence

“Honor Among Thieves: Understanding Rhetorical and Material Cooperation among Violent Nonstate Actors,” International Organization, Vol. 76, No. 1 (2022), pp. 164-203, with Christopher Blair, Michael C. Horowitz, Evan Perkoski, and Philip Potter. (earlier version available at SSRN).

The Oxford Handbook of Terrorism (Oxford University Press, 2019), co-editor with Richard English, Andreas Gofas, and Stathis Kalyvas.

“The Study of Terrorism: Achievements and Challenges Ahead,” in Chenoweth, English, Gofas, and Kalyvas, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Terrorism (Oxford University Press, 2019), with Andreas Gofas.

The Politics of Terror (Oxford University Press, 2018), with Pauline Moore.

“Insurgency,” in James D. Wright, ed. International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition (Elsevier, 2015), with Jonathan Pinckney.

Political Violence, editor (Sage, 2013).

Rethinking Violence: State and Non-State Actors in Conflict (MIT Press, 2010) co-editor with Adria Lawrence.

“War Initiation and Transnational Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection?” Center for International Peace and Security Studies (CIPSS) Working Paper 29, McGill University, October 2009.

“What Makes Terrorists Tick?” International Security, Vol. 33, No. 4 (Spring 2009), with Nicholas Miller and Elizabeth McClellan.

  • For the extended version of our article, click here.
  • For Max Abrahms’s original article, click here.
  • For Paul Staniland’s additional comments on the exchange, click here.
  • The entire correspondence is reprinted in Michael E. Brown, Owen R. Cote, Jr., Sean Lynn-Jones, and Steven E. Miller, eds., Contending with Terrorism: Roots, Strategies, and Responses (MIT Press, 2010).

“To Bribe or To Bomb? Do Corruption and Terrorism Go Together?” in Robert I. Rotberg, ed. Corruption, Global Security, and World Order (Brookings Institution Press, 2009), with Jessica C. Teets.

  • Replication data.

Strategic Nonviolent Resistance, Nonviolent Action, Revolution, and Mobilization

“The Role of Violence in Nonviolent Resistance,” Annual Review of Political Science, Vol. 26 (June 2023), pp. 55-77.

“Nonviolent Resistance and its Discontents,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 60, No. 1 (June 2023), pp. 3-8, with Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham.

“People Power,” in Greta Thunberg, ed., The Climate Book (New York: Penguin Random House, 2023).

“Youth and LGBTQ+ Participation in Nonviolent Action,” Washington, DC: USAID, January 2023, with Matthew Cebul, Zoe Marks, and Miranda Rivers.

“Updating Nonviolent Campaigns: Introducing NAVCO 2.1,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 59, No. 6 (November 2022), pp. 876-889, with Christopher Wiley Shay.

“Pro-Democracy Organizing in the United States: A Strategic Assessment & Recommendations,” HKS Working Paper No. RWP-017,2022 (October 2022), with Zoe Marks.

“Gandhi’s Century,” in Veena R. Howard and Falon Kartch, eds., Gandhi’s Global Legacy: Moral Methods and Modern Challenges (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2022), pp. 47-64.

“A Dynamic Model of Nonviolent Resistance Strategy,” PLoS ONE 17, No. 7 (July 27, 2022): e0269976, with Andrew Hocking and Zoe Marks.

“Can Nonviolent Resistance Survive COVID-19?” Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 21, No. 3 (July 2022), pp. 304-316.

“Who Protests, What Do They Protest, and Why?” (NBER Working Paper 29987, May 2022), with Barton H. Hamilton, Hedwig Lee, Nicholas W. Papageorge, Stephen Roll, and Matthew V. Zahn.

On Revolutions: Unruly Politics in the Contemporary World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022), with Colin J. Beck, Mlada Bukovansky, George Lawson, Sharon Erickson Nepstad, and Daniel P. Ritter.

“Protests under Trump, 2017-2021,” Mobilization: An International Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 1 (March 2022), pp. 13–26, with Jeremy Pressman, Tommy Leung, Nathan Perkins, and Jay Ulfelder.

Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, March 2021).

The Role of External Support in Nonviolent Campaigns: Poisoned Chalice or Holy Grail? (ICNC Press, February 2021), with Maria J. Stephan.

  • Replication data coming soon.

“Women, Peace, and Security: Women’s Participation for Peaceful Change,” Joint Brief Series: New Insights on Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) for the Next Decade. Stockholm: Folke Bernadotte Academy, PRIO, & UN Women, with Zoe Marks.

“The Future of Nonviolent Resistance,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 31, No. 3 (July 2020), pp. 69-84.

“Questions, Answers, and Some Cautionary Updates Regarding the 3.5% Rule,” Carr Center Discussion Paper Series 2020-005. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, April 2020.

Women’s Participation and the Fate of Nonviolent Campaigns: A Report on the Women in Resistance (WiRe) Dataset (One Earth Future Foundation, October 2019).

  • Access the Women in Resistance (WiRe) Dataset at Harvard Dataverse (Excel data file, csv source file & pdf codebook).

Civil Action and the Dynamics of Violence (Oxford University Press, 2019), co-editor with Deborah Avant, Marie Berry, Rachel Epstein, Cullen Hendrix, Oliver Kaplan, and Timothy D. Sisk.

“The Physics of Dissent and the Effects of Movement Momentum,” Nature Human Behaviour, Vol. 3, No. 10 (October 2019), with Margherita Belgioioso.

  • See accompanying blog post at Nature Research here.
  • Data and replication file at Harvard Dataverse (tab data file & STATA 15 do-file).

“Introducing the Nonviolent Actions in Violent Contexts (NVAVC) Dataset,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 56, No. 2 (May 2019), with Cullen Hendrix and Kyleanne Hunter.

“Three Common Objections to the Study of Nonviolent Resistance,” in Hank Johnston, ed. Social Movements, Nonviolent Resistance, and the State (Routledge, 2019).

“Reform, Resistance, and Revolution,” Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 18, No. 1 (January 2019), pp. 138-145.

“Who Made the Women’s March?” in Sidney Tarrow and David S. Meyer, eds. The Resistance (Oxford University Press, 2018), with Marie E. Berry.

“Days of Rage: Introducing the NAVCO 3.0 Dataset,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 55, No. 4 (July 2018), with Jonathan Pinckney and Orion A. Lewis.

Nonviolent Resistance and the Prevention of Mass Killings During Popular Uprisings, ICNC Special Report (May 2018), with Evan J. Perkoski.

“Backfire in Action: Insights from Nonviolent Campaigns from 1946-2006,” in Lee Smithey and Lester Kurtz, eds. The Paradox of Repression and Nonviolent Social Movements (Syracuse University Press, May 2018).

“The Trump Administration’s Adoption of the Anti-Revolutionary Toolkit,” PS: Politics and Political Science, Vol. 51, No. 1 (January 2018).

“How Risky is Nonviolent Dissent? Nonviolent Uprisings and Mass Killings,” SSRN Working Paper, with Evan J. Perkoski (2017).

“State Repression and Nonviolent Resistance,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 61, No. 9 (2017), with Evan J. Perkoski and Sooyeon Kang.

Struggles from Below: Literature Review on Human Rights Struggles by Domestic Actors, DRG Working paper, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), February 21, 2017, with Tricia Olsen, Kyleanne Hunter, Pauline Moore, Jonathan Pinckney, and Heidi Reynolds-Stenson.

“Trends in Nonviolent Resistance and State Response: Is Violence Toward Civilian-Based Movements on the Rise?” Global Responsibility to Protect Vol. 9, No. 1 (January 2017).

Civil Resistance and Corporate Behavior: Mapping Trends and Assessing Impact, DRG Working Paper, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), August 12, 2016, with Tricia D. Olsen.

  • Replication data (zip file containing raw data in xls, article data in dta, replication files in do).

“Response to Fabrice Lehoucq’s ‘Does Nonviolence Work?’ ” Comparative Politics, Vol. 48, No. 4 (July 2016).

“Do Contemporaneous Armed Challenges Affect the Outcomes of Mass Nonviolent Campaigns?” Mobilization: An International Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 4 (December 2015), with Kurt Schock.

  • Replication data (zip file containing data in xls and dta, replication files in smcl and do) and appendices (zip file containing coding notes, errata, and R&R memo in pdf).

“Can Structural Conditions Explain the Onset of Nonviolent Uprisings?” Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 61, No. 2, (2017), with Jay Ulfelder.

“The Art and Science of Civil Resistance,” Thammasat Review, Vol. 18, No. 1 (2015).

“Institutions and Political Mobilization,” in Rubén Ruiz-Rufino and Jennifer Gandhi, eds. Handbook of Comparative Political Institutions (Routledge, 2015).

“Trends in Civil Resistance and Authoritarian Responses,” in Maria J. Stephan and Mat Burrows, eds., Is Authoritarianism Staging a Comeback? (Atlantic Council, 2015).

“Collecting Data on Nonviolent Action: Lessons Learned and Ways Forward,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 51, No. 1 (January 2015), with Joel Day and Jonathan Pinckney.

“The Civil Rights Movement and U.S. Democracy: A Discussion of Jonathan Rieder, Gospel of Freedom: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail and the Struggle That Changed a Nation,” Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 12, no 3 (September 2014).

“Civil Resistance: Reflections on an Idea Whose Time Has Come,” Global Governance, Vol. 20 (2014).

“Understanding Nonviolent Resistance,” Special Issue of the Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 50, No. 3 (May 2013), guest editor with Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham.

  • Read Chenoweth & Cunningham’s introduction to the special issue here.
  • Listen to the podcast publicizing the JPR Special Issue here.

“Unpacking Nonviolent Campaigns: Introducing the NAVCO 2.0 Dataset,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 50, No. 3 (May 2013), with Orion A. Lewis.

Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict, with Maria J. Stephan (Columbia University Press, August 2011).

“Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict,” International Security, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Summer 2008), with Maria J. Stephan.

State Repression, Mass Atrocities, and State Response to Terrorism and Insurgency

“Threat, Emboldenment, or Both? The Effects of Political Power on Violent Hate Crimes,” Criminology, Vol. 58, No. 4 (November 2020), with Laura Dugan.

“A Source of Escalation or a Source or Restraint? Whether and How Civil Society Affects Mass Killings,” Special Report, Simon-Skodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, (July 2020), with Evan Perkoski.

“Does U.S Presidential Rhetoric Affect Asymmetric Political Violence?” Critical Studies on Terrorism, Vol. 12, No. 1 (January 2019), with Daren Fisher and Laura Dugan.

“Deterrence or Blowback? The Consequences of Canadian Counterterrorism in Afghanistan,” in Jez Littlewood, Lorne Dawson, and Sara Thompson, eds., Terrorism and Counterterrorism in Canada (University of Toronto Press, 2019), with Laura Dugan.

“Introducing the Government Actions in Terror Environments (GATE) Dataset,” in Michael Stohl, Scott Englund, and Richard Burchill, eds. Constructions of Terrorism: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Research and Policy (University of California Press, 2017), with Laura Dugan.

“The Canadian Way of Counterterrorism: Introducing the GATE-Canada Dataset,” Canadian Foreign Policy Journal (May 2016), with Laura Dugan.

  • Replication data TBD.

“Government Responses to Terrorism,” in Gary LaFree, Laura Dugan, and Erin Miller, Putting Terrorism in Context: Lessons Learned from Global Data (Routledge, 2014), with Laura Dugan.

“Government Actions in Terror Environments (GATE): A Methodology that Reveals how Governments Behave toward Terrorists and their Constituencies,” in V.S. Subrahmanian, ed., Handbook of Computational Approaches to Counterterrorism (Springer, 2013), with Laura Dugan.

“Moving Beyond Deterrence: The Effectiveness of Raising the Expected Utility of Abstaining from Terrorism in Israel,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 77, No. 4 (August 2012), with Laura Dugan.

“All Terrorism is Local: Constructing Urban Coalitions for Homeland Security in the American Federal System,” Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 63, No. 3 (September 2010), with Susan E. Clarke.

“The Politics of Vulnerability: Constructing Local Performance Regimes for Homeland Security,” Review of Policy Research, Vol. 23, No. 1 (January 2006), with Susan E. Clarke.

“A Contested Threat: The Politics of Security Collaboration for Combating Terrorism,” in Isaiah Wilson III and James Forest, eds. Handbook of Defence Politics: International and Comparative Perspectives (London: Routledge, 2009).

“Italy and the Red Brigades: The Success of Repentance Policy in Counterterrorism,” in James Forest, ed. Countering Terrorism and Insurgency in the 21st Century (Westport: Praeger, 2007).

“Open Source for Counterterrorism: Facilitating Inter-Agency Communication and Open Source Intelligence,” in James Forest, ed. Countering Terrorism and Insurgency in the 21st Century (Westport: Praeger, 2007), with Orion A. Lewis.

“Vulnerabilities and Resilience in America’s Financial Services,” in James Forest, ed. Homeland Security: Protecting America’s Targets, Vol. 3 (Westport: Praeger, 2006).

Terrorism, Democracy, and Dissent

Terror in the Age of Dissent (book manuscript under contract with Columbia University Press).

“On Democracy as a Method of Nonviolence,” in Nils Petter Gleditsch, ed. R J. Rummel: An Assessment of His Many Contributions (Springer, 2017), pp. 107-115.

“Regime Type and Terrorist Attacks,” in Nancy Pinkerton, Stephen Kosslyn, and Robert Scott, eds., Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences (Wiley, 2015), with Kara Kingma and Bryan Cramer.

“Terrorism and Democracy,” Annual Review of Political Science, Vol. 16 (May 2013), pp. 355-378.

“Is Terrorism Still a Democratic Phenomenon?” International Relations, Vol. 8, No. 32 (Winter 2012), pp. 85-100.

“Democratic Competition and Terrorist Activity,” The Journal of Politics, Vol. 72, No. 1 (January 2010), pp. 16-30.

“Democratic Pieces: Democratization and the Origins of Terrorism,” in William R. Thompson and Rafael Reuveny, eds., Coping with Terrorism: Origins, Escalation, Counter-Strategies, and Responses (Buffalo: SUNY Press, November 2010).

“The Inadvertent Effects of Democracy on Terrorist Group Emergence,” BCSIA Discussion Paper 2006-06 (Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, November 2006).

“Instability and Opportunity: The Origins of Terrorism in Weak and Failed States,” in James Forest, ed. The Making of a Terrorist, Vol. 3 (Westport: Praeger, 2005).

Researching Contentious Politics, Terrorism, and Political Violence 

“The Science of Contemporary Street Protest: New Efforts in the United States,” Science Advances, Vol. 10, No. 5 (October 2019), with Dana R. Fisher, Kenneth T. Andrews, Neal Caren, Michael T. Heaney, Tommy Leung, L. Nathan Perkins, and Jeremy Pressman.

“On Research That ‘Matters’,” in Peter Krause and Ora Szekely, eds. Stories from the Field: A Guide to Navigating Fieldwork in Political Science. New York: Columbia University Press (June 2020).

“The Future is a Moving Target: Predicting Political Instability,” British Journal of Political Science (October 2020), with Drew Bowlsby, Cullen Hendrix, and Jonathan Moyer.

“A Proactive Definition of Peace,” International Studies Review, Vol. 19, No. 1 (March 2017), pp. 133-134.

“On Classifying Terrorism: A Potential Contribution of Cluster Analysis for Academics and Policymakers,” Defense and Security Analysis, Vol. 23, No. 4 (December 2007), with Elizabeth Lowham.